Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Posts

Make love not war. This oft-used mantra from
my old hippie days is broader and deeper than just being a political pacifist and social activist. "..Blessed are the peacemakers, says Scripture, for they shall be called the
children of God.." Do you bring the peace of God into a room when you enter or do
you arrive creating discord and bringing enmity? Really, think about it. Is
your persona, are your conversations, peaceful, nurturing and up lifting or are
they riddled with fault, blame and bitterness - are you an agitator? According
to this text in the Gospel of Matthew only the children of God can bring the
peace of knowing God to others. In reality, only a person who is at peace with
himself can bring peace. To be otherwise is like mutually exclusive. Embracing
peacemaking doesn't mean that we always avoid conflict, but being peaceable
does mean recognizing the real costs of the contrary and weighing those costs
as if they will be shouldered by ourselves and our loved o…

Life is messy and
imperfect. When I was younger I was taught, graded,
encouraged to be perfect. I failed miserably. My story, maybe like yours, is
one loaded with fractures, cracks and imperfections. Frankly, in this world,
we're all broken and wounded in some way and to some degree. Some of us choose
to grow and become stronger as a result of this brokenness; still others fight
against it or choose to stay fractured. My encouragement to those comes from
Christ's own words, " ...he took bread and broke it..." When
we allow our Creator to break us {CLICK HERE} He does so
to make us whole. And, we often come through the experience with a really cool
patina. Out of our brokenness comes beauty. #minmchurch #churchpearland

When the unclean Pig-Pen's of the world touched Jesus, He was not made unclean;
rather the unclean were cleansed, made whole and made complete. In the person
and hospitality of Christ we see God as willing to share Himself with everyone:
Jew, Gentile, sinner, the broken, the unclean. Too often, we restrict and
burden the unbeliever with our man made definitions of who can approach and
interact and have a relationship with our Creator. The Apostle Peter clarifies
this in Acts
10:28. My Sunday Thought - Whom are you judging as unclean and what's the
Spirit saying to you about your attitude? Shalom...PKES #minmchurch

The Christian life is not just about a personal relationship with God, even if personal faith and responsibility are absolutely necessary. When too much emphasis is placed on a privatize salvation, we run the potential of getting so much wrong.

Avoid the draw to escape church citizenry. Becoming a disciple of Christ was never meant to be a solo expedition. Doing so means we expose ourselves to totally missing the opportunity to see the Eternal and His Holy Spirit in action: in real communities, in actual churches, in non-partisan politics, in obvious differences, in honest-to-goodness marriages, in authentic social discussions and during hard theological disagreements. You can't go it alone. Following Jesus shouldn’t be about intellectual assent, but rather it's communal activity, where-by we help ensure we don’t run the risk of missingthe Word who came to dwell among us. Consider that believing in Jesus and being mentored by the Holy Ghost is largely a group activity, albeit a…

Are you holding a close secret? Are you mum on something you're not supposed to tell anyone? If you’re like many folks I’ve met, you’re holding ‘something or other’ pretty close to your vest. And in doing so, as SNL’s Mike Myers would say: “Oh, I'm getting a little verklempt (farklempt). Most stuff is worth sharing, especially with the right person. While sharing personal “stuff” might seem like an invasion of privacy, it’s so worth the “vulnerability hangover”It’s worth being misunderstood and misrepresented. There’s desirability in discomfort. It's worth the death of your self-image and maybe even your brand. There’s benefit to owning up to what’s inside, no matter how difficult, because as the Psalmist wrote: Hidden things will always come out into the open. Secret things will come to light and be exposed.[1] Secrets bring bondage, sharing brings freedom. Freedom. Here’s what happens when you finally drop the act, when you finally admit that you're not fine, when you …

“..Like a sheep to a shearing, like a lamb to be slaughtered, he went—oh so quietly, oh so willingly..”The crucifixion of Christ, the awful marriage of human sinfulness and the pinnacle of divine grace, must remain an enduring mystery, a mystery of my faith — Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. Good Friday calls on me to take another look, to remember, His death. ~Selah~ So in my exuberance to treasure all the beauty that is Easter, I must be careful not to scurry past Good Friday. Easter alone does not make Christianity unique. It’s Good Friday, coupled with Easter, where we find the uniqueness of Christianity. As you contemplate the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, I pray that God will reveal his unfathomable love for you in new ways. May you know the love of the one who gave his life for you…#Pkes #MinMChurch #MetroLifeChurch